I think you've exaggerated what was stated/reported. Having a centralized means for verification is necessary but not sufficient; iOS has the opportunity to perform the verification by way of their distribution model.

Spam, malware, and phishing attacks are a serious plague. Not only do their infections cause untold loss of productivity but the necessary scanning tools also cause a staggering loss of device productivity and reliability. I think it is important that all companies take this problem much more seriously. Most reports of spam and malware being sent elicit no response from the company and the problems persist. If we all adopted a zero tolerance policy and the senders were more aggressively prosecuted, this problem could be substantially reduced.

"There is no centralized place where Google can check all apps for suspicious behavior, according to McAfee."
So I guess iOS users dont have to worry about malware, since all apps pass thru Apple's scrutiny. But how about malicious javascript etc which run inside the browser?